


Hallowed Fields

by Taleya



Category: Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Community: norsekink, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Non-Con, Mpreg, Multi, Multiple Universe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-01-05
Updated: 2012-03-03
Packaged: 2017-10-29 02:51:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/315021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taleya/pseuds/Taleya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the Norsekink prompt:</p><p>Two parallel universes. One light, one dark. Whatever flying piece of plot the author wishes, the Lokis are interchanged. Thor has his brother back - but broken, horribly abused (maybe wearing a collar to suppress his magic IDK). He and the avengers work to carefully nurse and bring this Loki back to health.</p><p>The dark universe, on the other hand, finds out that their favourite fucktoy and whipping boy has been replaced with a bug-fuck insane, unbroken, unafraid, unrestrained and <b>powerful</b> Loki.</p><p>(A/N: please pay attention to the wording of the prompt. And then some.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

He landed hard on his knees, hands moving automatically to protect the swell of his belly, still so small despite the months.

Despair welled in his breast. It hadn't worked. For there was his brother, and there was the man of iron, and the striped blue captain. 

They did not look pleased.

Loki let his head fall to his chest, broken and scarred fingers clutching tighter at his belly as they approached. He didn't dare look up, keeping his head bowed, breath quickening at the sound of their boots on the rubble.

A sudden spasm of pain clawed at him and he fell forward, one hand flat on the broken concrete beneath him, the other still clutching his stomach. No. Perhaps this was better. He stretched out his other hand, trembling, and placed it beside the first with slow deliberation. On his hands and knees. In complete obeisance. He could not hope for forgiveness or leniency, but perhaps...perhaps....

He tried to look alluring, pleasing as the footsteps came closer, breath shuddering and broken in his chest. Perhaps he could distract them. Arouse them, even pale and pathetic as he was.

The hands that grasped his shoulders, wrenching him to his feet were not gentle, but he had not expected them to be. He closed eyes at the sudden wrench of nausea the motion brought. He was already disgraced. They were already angry. He did not need to compound his fate by vomiting on the carefully wrought finery of his masters.

He kept his gaze low, servile, trying to keep the despair from painting it. But his hands betrayed him, fluttering and nervous, rising once more to press to his belly and the tiny, fragile life within.

Fingers brushed against the collar on his neck, his cheek, noises rising around him, questioning and senseless under the sudden ringing in his ears. They pressed against his swollen belly, brushing his own hands away and he stumbled back in blind panic, fetching up short against the cold metal of a mechanised suit. Gloved hands on his shoulders, pinning him place, a synthesised rumble in his ear. The pain surged again, slashing up his back as sharp as cats claws, this time bringing the feeling of blood between his legs and Loki drove his teeth into his lips to keep from shrieking at the thought of what it meant.

The noises rose again, louder, odd, strangely panicked notes to the sounds, so out of place and foreign to his ears that he marvelled to hear them. Strong arms swept him up, cradled him against a broad chest as his knees failed him, cradled him like something rare and so very precious and he finally dared to lift his gaze for a moment, just a moment, sweeping past shining armour and blonde hair to peer into the concerned and loving eyes of his brother Thor.

And in that moment, despite the pain, despite the blood, he felt nothing but relief.

He had finally gone mad.

 

* * *

 

The sky was wrong.

Loki tented careful fingers against the smooth, unbroken concrete beneath him, drawing minute particles to shift against the tips. He studied the feel of them, uncaring of approaching footsteps, the tug and quiver of the flow of forces therein. Familiar, yes, but subtly changed. Shifted on a level beyond imagining, past mere surface forces and formations into the basis of creation itself.

Intrigued, he pressed his fingers deeper, letting them slip into the ground as the footsteps came closer, pressing deep into the veins of the earth below. He let the blood well through him, along his arm and through his flesh, pushing further still, past molecules and atoms and other paltry, mis-named things, further and further until he touched on the song of the universe itself, a slippery, liquid thing heard not with ears or blood and sinew, but the faintest whispers of the mind and soul.

He had known all the realms, the hidden slips and shaded pathways through the tangled knots of Yggdrasil's roots and branches, had walked the stars and the dark spaces between, wrapped in the warmth of the universe, as familiar and known as a mother's hum. This.....This was new.

He studied it with careful fascination, teasing out the differences with delicate motions. Here, a piccolo note, high and sweet and utterly foreign. There, a basso, shuddering his bones with a strange and wicked thrum. And gone were other notes, the dark, heady snarls of the wolf, the tinkling skitter of fingernails on bone, the hissing snare of sinuous coils.

The footsteps stopped behind him.

But there were things that were still constant. He could sense them, ever-present, even in this queer new symphony. The comforting, staccato whine of madness. The pound of a bloodied heart. The trickling dance of mischief, somehow new and unexplored, and rising above them, the sodden howl of _mayhem._

A smile slashed his lips as he spun in place, easily catching and holding the boot aimed for his head.

Oh, this was going to be _fun_.


	2. Chapter 2

His first thought was that he was a child once more. He was wrapped in warmth and comfort, and someone was singing.

 _// Riding on the rainbow and they'll pass the gate of Heimdall  
Open up Gladheim and the Walhall//_

A hand stroked across his hair, gentle and soothing, carefully working at the knots and snarls. Or was it a cloth, warm and tender against the bruised skin of his cheek?

 _//In the middle of the world the rock of gods stand high.  
On the dark yule-night//_

Loki remembered the days of singing and love. So long ago. He had almost forgotten. The memories were dimmed, shadowed things, as if viewed through a dusty glass. He pressed his face against it, smiling as his breath made some pattern or other on the battered surface.

He was four, perhaps five. And his mother had sung as she weaved, her fingers deft across the loom. He had sat at her feet with his head leaned against her knee, watching the motion of the shuttle with quietly fascinated eyes as the stories unfolded across the cloth. A hunter, driving his spear into a golden boar. A marvellous ship, laden with fantastical treasures.

There had been a bruise on his cheek then too, the shadow of a raven’s wing. Her fingers had been cool against it, gentle and loving.

Thor had been Father’s, but he had been hers, a pretty, wicked plaything. Making merry with small tricks and childish games for her amusement, her laughter light and warm as the arms about him. More _seiðmaðr_ than _arr_ she had called him, and there had been no shame in the words, her hands soft as she had woven precious gems into his hair. Her cherished little magpie, with feathers wove of schemes and plots. She had showered him with rare books, fetched him the greatest of scholars; gifted him with sharp knives that came so sweetly to his hand. Rare stones clasped within their hilts, sparkling emeralds and sapphires that he had liked to stroke and pet. Her voice had been gentle, loving, singing endless songs of a bright and shining future, of her jewelled and crafty princeling seated upon the throne of all realms.

He cradled the memories to his chest, precious, rare things plucked from a tree long turned to dust. Back when he had been loved. Before his magic had begun to twist and branch, stretching wings into strange new realms she could not imagine. Before Thor’s strength had grown and grown, stripping far beyond the hopes of all others.

His mother’s smiles had first turned strained, then faded completely as the favour of the court had fallen more and more to his brother’s deeds; to the golden arms and mighty hammer of the warrior Thor. There had been no more jewels, then no more songs, soft tongue now bitter and biting. His mother’s love had turned dried and weathered like autumn leaves beneath Loki’s feet as the years had passed, finally leaving only stark and dead winter branches behind on the day Thor had been pronounced heir.

 _Ergi. Ragr_

The snap of a collar about his throat, the world around him dying in his senses, washed of colour and taste, of warmth and light, dark and barren and so _cold_. A dangerous thing to his brother’s cold gaze; too wild, too powerful. An abomination dancing freely across the thinnest of skins between man and woman. And yet, therein had laid the use that had stayed an executioner’s axe, spared his head if not his flesh.

He felt his brows twist upon his forehead as the memories darkened, bitter ash and poisoned skies, fingers twitching to hold onto the remembered warmth of old, to stay in the place where the songs had been sweet and he had been _loved_. Where there was no fear or pain. To walk the sea of dreams forever, where the sand was soft and kind beneath his feet.

“Loki?”

He dimly sensed the feel of a hand closing over his own, drawing him from the bittersweet curdle of recollection. He waited patiently for it to close into a fist, to clench and break, but it merely laid there, gentle and protective, smoothing over his fingers in slow, careful gestures. Despite himself he drifted closer, a strange questing thing with no real sense of body or self, seeking out the tiniest tendrils of warmth the lack of violence offered.

He wanted to hear the songs again.

 

* * *

 

"We have to get that collar off him."

Clint made a choked, half-snorted sound at Tony's words, compound bow half strung in his hands. "Please say you're joking," he said feebly.

" _What?_ "

Steve unconsciously licked his lips. "....Are we sure that's such a good idea?"

"Yes. I never thought I'd say this outside certain situations that dear _god_ do not relate to this in any way, shape or form but collar off. Now. And no, I am not drunk. God help me." He made a beeline for the bar, emptying half a bottle into his glass.

"Let me be the oft-ignored voice of sanity here." Clint carefully placed his bow on the table, and folded his hands across it. "You want to remove the one thing keeping a bat shit _insane_ Norse God under anything that remotely resembles control, yes? 'cos if I remember correctly, that collar is the only thing that stands between us and our new lives as a bunch of pink-footed ferrets. Do I have this clear?"

"Yes." Tony threw back half his glass in one gulp, voice blunt. "And If we don’t, he's gonna lose that baby."

At his words half-formed protests died unsaid in various throats.

"Fury's not going to like it." Natasha’s voice was carefully neutral.

"Yeah, well, Fury can go fuck himself at this point." Tony's face was ashen, despite the words. JARVIS had compiled a thorough report and sent it on to S.H.I.E.L.D headquarters. Too thorough.

He'd never wanted a drink more badly in his life.

"Normally I'd agree with Clint." Banner appeared in the doorway, voice apologetic in its confession. "It's a bad idea. I doubt he's mentally stable. He's been abused, repeatedly, and has been for a long time. Physically, sexually," he swallowed, a dry click in his throat as Tony's hand twitched around the scotch glass "- probably psychologically as well. And that collar is probably the only thing that let them do it. But we don’t have a choice. I'm not prepared for this, no one on this planet is. And that baby won't survive the return trip to Asgard, even if they _would_ help us. " He spread his hands in a helpless gesture. "We know his magic can help heal him, we've seen him do it before. It's the only chance that baby has."

"Can we contain him?"

"I don't know. Thor thinks he can. I'm not so sure."

"Do we need to?" Steve's voice was hesitant. "I mean...you said this isn't Loki. Not the one we know. Maybe he's different. Maybe he's one of the good guys, on our side. Maybe that's why they did....that to him."

Tony rubbed the glass across his forehead. "I gotta admit, the idea of someone like Loki on our side is tempting as hell," he confessed.

"And what if he's _worse?_ "

"So what if he is?" Steve shot back. "We’re supposed to be the good guys here! Yeah, he's strange, and he's Loki, but he's hurt and he's _pregnant_ and his baby is dying and we can _stop that_ , stop all of that that, he came to us for help - or don't we do that any more? Do we get to decide now who is or isn't innocent enough –"

"Jesus _christ_ , I'm not saying we should take him out back and shoot him, we just need to take some precautions – "

"I think we're missing a more important question," Banner's voice broke across the rising argument. "If he's _here_ , then where is our Loki?"

A stunned silence fell across the room as each of them pondered the thought of the dark, malevolent god, unchallenged and alone in a world that viewed him as easy prey.

Clint started laughing.

"Holy shit, I hope he's got a camera."

 

* * *

 _// In the house of Odin the fallen one is standing//_

Thor let the words die out into silence, a hand kneading restlessly at his thigh. The Midgardian chair by the bed was too small, his legs jumbled and cramped beneath him. The room was too warm, set for the injured and the weakened, the lights were too bright. The soft weave of the gown they had clad his brother in served only to draw a tighter contrast to the pale, sunken cheeks, devoid of colour and cast in grey.

There should have been cool breezes and soft lights to ease the healing of the wounded. The warmth of flames across gilded walls, soft furs and gentle songs. The scents of hvönn and maythen, to soothe and bind the soul to this realm.

His hand rested over his brother's where it lay across the swell of his stomach under the cool, sterile sheets, tanned and large, clumsy in comparison. Loki seemed so…thin, Small, fragile, like something composed of glass and straw.

Thor stroked over the long fingers carefully, marking every bruise and scar before moving to take it gently into his own, some dim, frightened part of his mind worried that even the bare pressure of their combined weight could harm the brittle life beneath.

They had been careful, so very careful, and gentle as they knew how, but Loki had still cried out as they had removed the stinking, bloodied clothes from his frail body, too-stark bones protruding like strange sculptures embedded in bruised flesh. Even unconscious and unaware, he had wept and shuddered at the touch of Banner’s hands between his legs, and yet lain so still and resigned, broken and dispirited as they had worked to staunch the flow of blood.

His brother had never been so strongly built in physical form, all litheness and speed instead of bulk and force. But the strength of his endurance, his unbending will, stubborn and commanded without exception had always been far, far greater than any Thor had ever known. To see it broken thus, a meek, submissive thing that cried and shook in naked fear hurt the thunderer’s head and his heart, far more than any words could ever speak. To imagine what could bring such a thing to pass invited madness itself.

His brother’s hand was cold. Cradling the too-thin fingers between his palms, Thor rubbed gently to warm them. His own bones throbbed with a gnawing ache, as if to snap themselves from holding back the force of his rage. His muscles screamed with the instinct to fight, to hunt. To find those who had done this, to repay them in blood and pain, blow for blow, to smash and to break as Loki had been broken. But this was not the time, not the place, stilted and confined and instead his bones ached and teeth ground together until they would shatter to dust pasting his tongue.

Tenderly, he laid his brother’s hand back down upon the swell of his stomach, careful to splay the quiet fingers over the fledging life within. “Your child is safe, brother,” he promised softly, voice strange and too-loud in the quiet of the room.

Stark had spoken of distant worlds, or realities twined and twisted around each other like writhing snakes. Of parallel lines, diverged and branching into new, questing shapes. Of how this was not his brother, not his Loki, but a copy, a shade brought somehow to life in a realm to which it had never been born.

Thor’s ears had heard these words. And his head knew them to be true. But his nose still itched with the reek of his brother's blood, his fingers still ached with the memory of that frantic, fading heartbeat, and his heart still chilled at the sight of the starved and abused form on the bed.

He rested a gentle hand on the dark head, tracing a thumb across the fine brows as they furrowed in uneasy, haunted dreams.

This did not feel like a shade. Not a trick or a mimicry. He was not so skilled at the arts of seiðr as his brother, but he could still sense it, the flow of it, the flow of a soul and somewhere, he knew, even in the broken form before him still danced the clear-eyed, laughing child of their youth.

He could not let it come to any further harm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Lyrics from Therion’s _Asgård_ , used without permission


	3. Chapter 3

The hands that threw him into the back seat of the roadster were not gentle nor caring, a far cry from the shining, precious _heroes_ of his own realm, hurling his unprotesting body heedlessly onto its side in the padded interior as if he were a sack of hay. Loki bit his lip as his head bounced off the inner handle, the grin bright and wicked on his teeth as the car set in motion.

The fight had proved unworthy of his attention in the end. There had been no fun to be had there, no heroic endeavours to thwart nor crafty plots to weave. Not even the basic, crude mechanics of battle, the dull routine of stagnated acts of sinew against sinew, but simply the motion of mindless bullies amongst children, without elegance or any real skill. There had been some amusement at first, the baffled anger on their faces as they were thwarted again and again, but it had quickly faded and he had grown bored.

He would have finished them quickly and messily; a strange mercy perhaps, but he was eager to explore this strange new universe and all its shining treasures. Instead his sharp, clever eyes had seen something more, something hidden and slipping behind their blank, dull thoughts as he had slid away from another futile blow and he had stayed his hand, intrigued.

Loki snapped a broken finger back into place with a pensive gesture as they bounced over a pothole, a hidden flash of magic to heal the bone. Careful to leave the bruise behind, such a pretty, pleasing colour.

The mortals had struck blows meant to hurt, to wound, to damage, but not _too_ much. They had been frustrated and they had been angry, but they had also been held fast from their true power by some fearful chains he did not yet know the true shape of. Fascinated, he had allowed them to fall upon him, voice laughing and wild as fists and boots had rained down, had let himself be thought captured and helpless. The fear of a closed fist was a power that could be held by any brainless fool, after all. But the mind, ahh, the mind that had given them _control_.....

He would like to taste that mind. Slip his tongue and teeth and nails inside it, pry it apart and swallow the flesh.

He hummed idly to himself and walked his hand up the bruises on his skin, as if his fingers were spiders and the vivid colours formed from the crystals of the Bifröst itself. Sadly, no pulse of light followed the motion as they skittered and danced. It wouldn't do to be too ostentatious, after all.

Such little damage. So small and inconsequential. Flesh upon flesh, inelegant and unrefined, the blows of spoiled and tantrumed children against stone and ice, seeking to rend and tear and break him down where the fall between realms had left him unmarked.

He tripped his fingers across the collar on his neck, prodding thoughtfully at it, rolling on the seat as they turned a sharp corner. A neat little thing. Composed of magics and metals, the two intertwined around Midgardian electronics, feeding and cycling about each other in an unbreaking shield. Held in perfect balance, interwoven and interdependent. Elegant and so very, very flawed. It had taken only a moment's thought to render it quite useless.

If he had been unconscious or asleep when it had been put on him, it would have been problematic at best. But conscious and aware, it had been a simple matter to disrupt the delicate balance and shatter the enchantment within, and it cost him so very little to allow them to snap it about his throat like an unbalanced torc.

He would have preferred something in gold.

Rolling onto his back, he scuffed his feet against the fine leather of the seat, heedless of the muffled curse and back-handed blow it earned him from Stark. The car swerved wildly as the iron man's hands left the wheel and Loki giggled as the motion threw Rogers into the window.

"...my fucking _car_..."

There was a hole in his pants, low on his thigh and he pressed a thumb to the dark, purpled blemish beneath - the remnant of a brief, foolish attempt to shatter his knee. Pain rose and spread at the motion, a pleasant hum across his flesh.

They would pay for that, he decided. He would peel the armour from Tony Stark, piece by piece, let it shatter and rot to the ground. And then the skin would follow, and Loki would flense the soft blubber from his spoiled bones, expose the viscera, glistening and wet to the sun and wind. Perhaps he would start with the face, that trimmed and vain goatee. A sharp knife, meticulous and slow, scoring first to mark his work, then deeper, lifting the skin away with one hand to slide the blade beneath it, severing the connecting tissues. Remove it in a single piece, tanned and dried. And perhaps make him eat it.

Or possibly the hands. Those clever, blacksmith's tools. He watched them hungrily as they gripped the soft red leather of the wheel. Degloving would be the best way to proceed there, a careful cut about the wrist, sliding the very tip of the knife up under the skin to loosen it further before pulling it bare as the ironmonger howled and thrashed under his grip, blood stippling the floor in pleasing, chaotic patterns.

The mind he would save for last, the tastiest treat of all. That delicate, sparkling machinery of _metal_ and _science_ , of ordered lines and tamed mathematics. He would disassemble it, piece by piece in the void between the realms, examine every glittering shard and wheel at depth between questing fingers before casting them aside, leaving broken, stuttering clockwork devoid of form or function.

Loki hummed again and lolled his head back, staring past the roof of the car and the outer metal cage, into the sky and past the moon, through the stars and hung from the branches above as they wheeled and spun in strange new motions. He rubbed the sigh of the galaxies between his fingers, and listened to the empty spaces devoid of howls. He would have liked to have shown his Fenris this place where the stars sang backwards, digging his fingers into the thick pelt as his son's shaggy jaws gulped and yawned, gobbling the shining sun whole. Taken his daughter's cold, rotted hand and seen her sail proud and defiant at the helm of her ship of dead man's fingernails across the seas of ice as they shattered and convulsed beneath the squeeze of his Jörmungand's coils. Yes. Yes.

He pressed the tip of his tongue to the blood dried on the corner of his mouth and tasted the bitter, metallic tang of it thoughtfully.

"Goddamned fruitcake."

His eyes cut to the side at Stark's words, catching the glimpse of pretty, pretty blue as Rogers stared at him and stretched his lips.

"Smile while you can, buddy." Rogers turned away. "Your brother isn't happy."

The smile grew wider, stretched like wire and he saw the blonde man's eyes skitter back in the rearview mirror, hard and mocking.

With the striped, foolish captain there would be a great deal of fun to be had. Less virtuous in this world, but still such a proud, shining warrior's heart. The deluded mortal who thought himself a god, playing greater than his sum. Loki would pander to that proud heart with respectful, venerate words that spoke fawningly of the other man’s power and might. Slide gently through the flesh with the barest of breaths to rest the lightest touch of poisoned barbs against it, to corrupt and tarnish with leisured delicacy until it withered away, worm-filled and putrefied, his substance and muscle soon to follow. He would like to watch that strength crumble and fade, eroded piece by piece, then leave the fool to stumble the realm a crippled, vitiate shade.

Loki slid his hand down the inside of his own thigh, holding that blue gaze in the mirror, kneading the muscles with his fingers as he rocked against the leather seat.

Or perhaps he would slither inside the other man, a slick, sinuous motion of aching slowness, feather-light and cold. Drink in the trembling cries of virtue lost and given gladly. Hollow him from the inside out, make of him a shambling, corpséd shell, only to fill him anew with weak and trembling things, small dark creatures of soil and darkness, blind snouts and tremulous tongues.

The smile stretched wider still as Rogers looked away, splitting Loki's lips to show delighted teeth. Behind the diamond of that blue gaze, behind the mockery, there had still slithered that eel of strange, twisted _fear_. He liked the look of it, the shape and taste as it curled against his tongue. He would take those eyes, yes, take them both and place them as pretty blue jewels, high on his bracers for all the worlds to see.

But such pleasantries were for later. And he was nothing if not patient.

They were taking him to _Thor_.


	4. Chapter 4

Thor held his brother's hands in both of his, gently, gently as they shook in his grasp. The younger man's eyes were wide and panicked, flicking nervously from their joined hands to the blade between Stark's fingers, quick, panicked breaths shivering in his chest.

"Peace, brother. Peace." Thor squeezed gently, trying to draw his attention. "He will not hurt you. I swear on it."

The words fell on deaf ears as Tony leaned closer, the point of his tongue poking out of the side of his mouth in concentration as he worked the very tip of the tool under the collar, prising up the surface to get at the delicate circuitry within. Loki jerked at the sound as the metal popped free, breath snatching higher and higher, a soft, panicked keen whining from his throat.

"Stark," Banner's voice was low, warning, eyes fixed on a monitor. "Back off."

"In a second," he muttered back, fingers turning gently. "Almost...."

"Back off _now._ "

Tony pulled away with a muffled curse, taking several steps back and giving the bed a wide berth. Loki continued to tremble beneath Thor's hands, eyes searching everywhere but his brother's face. His hands jerked within Thor's own, fingers twitching in stilted, aborted movements as if to weave spells or draw magics and Thor squeezed them again, the lightest of touches, feeling the tremors that wound up the brittle wrists and lean forearms.

He cradled a gaunt cheek in his palm, drew a tender thumb across the soft skin below a frightened eye. "You are safe, brother, you are safe. No harm will come to you, not in this place, I swear upon it. I am here. You are safe." He pressed their still-joined hands to the swell of his brother's belly, hunched over them in a protective vow. "Your child is here. It is safe, I promise, you are safe." He repeated the words, over and over, holding the frightened gaze with his own as his brother's throat jerked and bobbed with swallowed words and choked cries. "I swear it, Loki, I swear it. By our father's name. By our mother."

Loki twitched again at the words and Tony turned away, scratching the back of his head. "Can't we sedate him or something?"

Banner shook his head. "Too risky. Not in his condition. He's not human - he doesn’t even share the same biology of Thor from what we know. I don't want to risk it, not unless we have to."

"Right. Never that easy." He cast a quick glance up at the camera in the corner, where he knew the others were watching the proceedings. They should have brought Steve. Everyone liked Steve. It was practically a universal law. Like puppies.

He chanced another look over to where their resident deity was trying to calm his brother, all clumsy hands and muttered words. Except it didn't really seem to be working – it looked more like he was making things _worse_. The high cheeks were utterly devoid of colour now, eyes huge and bone dry in the almost fleshless face. He didn't seem to be so much breathing as _gulping_ , huge shattered gasps for air like a deer Tony had hit once with his car when he was sixteen, all broken grace and shattered ribs, trembling and trembling as if ready to fly apart at the seams. Thor didn't look too damned stable himself, hands moving over and over the shaking form in flighted, uncertain movements to touch a hand, a cheek, curling and flexing, as if to catch the cracked pieces and hold them all together.

"Hey, Thor buddy – "

" _You will step away,_ " the words were a snarl and Tony backed up immediately, hands raised in a placating gesture as angry blue eyes locked on his with a frightening intensity. "You will leave here. Both of you. Go. Now. "

"I don't think that's such a good – "

" **LEAVE US.** " The lights flickered at the roar, a bulb somewhere fizzing out in an explosive ~pop~ and Tony instinctively ducked. Ok, this situation was getting way out of hand and Banner was shouting something and Loki was shivering so hard he was practically vibrating, a dribbled cough caught in his throat and Jesus, Jesus fucking _Christ_ he was trying to turn on his side, shaking fingers pulling at his gown like he expected, like he expected –

Tony pressed the back of his hand to his mouth and bit down hard.

He'd never seen anyone move as fast as Thor did in that moment, pulling his brother into his arms with a sound like a dying howl, cradling the dark head against his chest and snatching up huge handfuls of the thin hospital sheets, pulling them over the bruised thighs and bony feet. Loki let out a strangled whimper at the motion, a hand pressing to his stomach and Tony felt his own lurch in response. Fuck. Fuck, the _baby -_

"Put him down, Thor." There was a glint of green in Banner's eyes that made the lurch in Tony's stomach turn into a full-blown barrel roll, complete with screaming passengers. Thor was staring furiously at them, angry and hurting as Loki shook in his arms, teeth bared in a wild snarl, looking suddenly a lot less like the resident goofy-grinned jock who ate all the poptarts before anyone else could get to them and broke way too many cellphones and doors and completely sucked at GTA because he mashed the buttons too hard and a lot more like a wild and furious God of Thunder and Lightning and Storms with his injured and abused brother cradled in his arms, and really? Tony was starting to get a grip on that whole human sacrifice deal ancient civilisations had going on because the urge to throw someone else in the way of that terrible, overwhelming _rage_ was powerful as hell.

"Put him down."

The blue eyes looked from Banner's face to Loki, limp and shaking in his brother's arms and the anger suddenly fled, leaving a baffled, helpless misery behind. Tony let out a breath he wasn't even aware he'd been holding as Thor surrendered his precious cargo reluctantly to the other man, hands opening and closing in convulsive gestures as the muscles jumped and twitched in his jaw. He watched as Thor took one step back, then two, three, shoulders twisting in and face tearing open, as if he was about to sit down on the floor right then and there and start bawling.

They stood there, side by side, watching as Banner kept his hands gentle, tried to touch the other man as little as possible, easing him back onto the bed and making a vague attempt to straighten the scrambled sheets. The wraithlike fingers caught desperately on the sleeve of the doctor's shirt in a simple, instinctual need for comfort, then spasmed away, as if the mind behind them had been taught the hard way not to seek such things.

It probably had, Tony realised with a sick feeling.

Beside him, Thor let out a breath that sounded less like an exhalation and more like a mourn. It was a low, pained sound, wet and ragged at the edges. The motion brought a strange sensation to it, like a momentary passing squall, and the tension in the room eased down a notch, leaving a sweeping sadness behind.

"My own brother fears me."

“He’s not your brother,” Tony whispered, a little surprised at the shake in his own voice.

Thor's eyes never moved from the form on the bed, but his hand clenched to fist at the words, muscles creaking under the strain. "I know you would mean well, but do not say such things to me, Stark. He is still _Loki_."

Tony dragged a frustrated hand down his face, letting out an explosive breath. " I'm not saying he's not Loki. Just that he's not _your_ Loki. He doesn't know you." Although he had some pretty damned nasty suspicions cementing in that direction. "At least not _you_ you," he amended. "Just... just take it easy, ok? It might be a good idea. Give him some space, let him get to know you before you go all momma bear on his ass." A sudden thought struck and he could have kicked himself. Jesus. They had been so caught up in everything, had anyone ever told _Loki_ that?

Thin fingers clutched at the sheets as Bruce made some soft, wordless noise of comfort and Tony swallowed. The poor bastard still thought he was back....home. Wherever the hell he had come from.

No wonder he was terrified.

Banner's hand was around a skeletal wrist as he approached the bed, fingers overlapping each other. He tried not to notice that, awkwardly clearing his throat. "Hey," He didn't miss the way the green eyes skittered past his face in terrified recognition and felt a sick, queasy feeling lurch up his spine as his suspicions deepened. "Hey buddy. You're safe, ok? You're safe. We're not going to hurt you. You're not....where you were before. You're somewhere else." Jesus. He wasn't sure if the other man was even capable of understanding a single damned word he was saying. "It's like a mirror. You know mirrors, right? Everything looks the same, but it's not. That's where you are. In the mirror." He grimaced. Oh yeah, great parallel there, trying to explain a magical perversion of M-theory across at least twenty-six dimensions by a deranged Norse god to _another_ probably-deranged Norse god using household items. This was going beautifully.

But the shivers were easing, stepping down from convulsive jerks to quiet shudders. That was a good sign, right? He was calming down. Either that or he was about to pass out. Which actually circumvented the whole sedative issue, so technically? Also a plus.

"Brother." Thor approached the bed again, shoulders hunched and knees crabbed almost comically in an attempt to appear smaller and unthreatening. He reached out a hand, only to draw it back as the other man jerked away, spreading his fingers instead out to an open palm, empty and peaceable. "Loki. You are safe. I promise you. You are safe. That realm is gone. It cannot touch you. You are safe. I swear on it. You are safe."

The words seemed to be sinking in this time, the haunted eyes fixing more and more on their own, some semblance of faculty, even something approaching sanity behind them. Observing their faces, their clothes in quick, nervous darts. Tony took a careful step back and let Thor talk on, babbling about _trees_ and _realms_ and a dozen other things that made no damned sense whatsoever - especially the part about the flaming undead goats - but he kept his mouth shut because the tense line between Banner's eyebrows was fading more and more with each murmured syllable and if he never, _ever_ heard a sound even remotely resembling those softly broken whimpers again in his life, well, that would be just fine by him.

And now Thor was _singing_ to his brother, some odd tune that should have sounded a lot funnier than it did, pitched wrong for his voice and an odd, alien cadence to the notes. But the tension was practically melting off the frail figure now, eyes wide with a peculiar sort of wonder and a hesitant hand was reaching up to finger tentatively at the sleeve of Thor's shirt.

More murmuring, low and fervid and this time Thor's face was large and earnest and Banner was easing away from the bed, a stark, stuttered relief on his face as the thunderer reached across to touch the slim fingers on his sleeve, a silent plea of permission on his face before taking them into his hand and Loki allowed it without protest.

Tony let his legs fold beneath him to sit on the floor, back propped against the wall as the singing started again. To his surprise, Banner joined him, tilting his head back against the cool surface.

"Remind me to give you a pay rise."

"You don't pay my wages," Bruce murmured back as the notes wove around them. "S.H.I.E.L.D does."

"Yeah, well, remind me to give you one anyway." Tony let out a chuff of air. "We don't get paid anywhere near enough to deal with this shit."

 

* * *

 

Loki drew in a breath and held it, careful not to move, to make the slightest noise or motion, closing his eyes as the blade drew closer.

He was safe, he reminded himself. They had told him he was safe. Safe. _Safe_ , a wonderful, mad lie that spiralled and danced in his mind. He clutched at it with slippery fingers, huddled around it, cradled it tight to his breast. He murmured it in his lungs, buried it deep in his belly, crawled inside and wrapped himself within it, as if it were a burrow he could make his home.

He had known something was wrong even before they had told him; his brother-who-was-not and the man of iron and the other, the stranger who smelled like the great beast his brother kept in chains by the throne but walked with the skin and calm of a man, their voices softly worked in careful, wondrous words and tones that spoke of concern and a tenderness he had forgotten the existence of. Something had broken, deep inside him, the unborn child hanging by the thinnest skein of thread in his womb. And he had prepared to mourn, as he had so many times for his other children, the ones taken from his body by fists and blades before they could draw breath and the ones torn so perfectly formed from his arms to be raised by their fathers as brutal, dark-eyed monsters. Álæifr. Narfi. Modi. He remembered their names, remembered their faces, even long after they had forgotten him. His shining Dagrún, who had been so perfect and whole but had never drawn breath, had been still and cold from the moment of her birth. His precious Hel, who had screamed and screamed when she had been brought forth slimed with blood and fluid, and had tugged on his hair with such tiny strong fists only to deemed an abomination and forever silenced as her tiny skull smashed beneath his brother's hammer.

But the ones here, the ones of this world, where they promised him safety and warmth and sang songs so surreal he still thought them illusion had sworn to him oaths, sacred oaths in names and places he did not know that they would save it, protect it, and he would eagerly take on any lie they told him, any lie at all for the hope of that one _truth._

The breath of the one who looked like the man of Iron with his lightning science and burning wires was low in his ear, light and concentrated, murmured words of _easy buddy_ and _almost there_ and he shivered at the feel of them, feeling Thor's callused hands clutch his own, feather light and so gentle it made his soul ache.

And then there was a sound, small, and tinkling, like the smashing of a tiny glass, so insignificant and -

It was like breaking through ice to take the first breath on a cold winter's morning. Like being born. Like the first apple of the season, shining and perfect, the scent of blossoms on a warm summer's night, the feel of grass beneath his toes and the rushing swell of a pleasured body, and it hurt, it _hurt_ , like a long-dead limb creaking to life, slowly at first, then faster and faster. The snap of a flint-stone chasing through his limbs, rising to the flare of a torch, a hearth-fire, a funerary blaze, the molten flows of Múspellsheimr itself. It rose and rose until he thought he would die, erased from existence, flashed to ashes and coal. A spark snapped from a cinder, vaporised in the wind. It sank through his bones, burning to the marrow within, ate through the nails of his fingers, filled his belly and his chest and his teeth and his skull and his _mind_ , oh his _mind_ , it sang and sang and sang and _sang...._

He dimly felt the clasp of Thor's hands on his arms as his back arched, mouth stretched around a sound too great to be uttered.

Oh. _oh_. The _colours_ and _sounds_ , he had forgotten them, forgotten so much, the dried dust of centuries half-sensed and barely known and he could see the differences now, all of them, and felt himself weep at the realisation, tears he had thought long dried and turned to sand suddenly pouring down his face. They hadn't lied. They hadn't lied. This realm was so shining and bright and _good_ , even the dark, noisome pockets of it roaring like the brightest stars as they burned through the universe and oh there were _children_ , here, so many children, bright-eyed and fat-cheeked and _loved_ and they surged into him, surged through him, roiling and settling under his skin, making his limbs dance and convulse and the breath freeze in his lungs only to melt again and course from his mouth in never-ending streams.

The world poured into him, laughing and shrieking and crying and so, so bright, so bright and so _warm_....

Loki threw his head back and screamed.


	5. Chapter 5

Such shining halls these mortals made for themselves. Things of brittle tin and melted sand, decorated with gaudy baubles and trinkets. Such hollow walls, formed and crafted in imperfect memory of the palaces and temples of the long dead. Gods who had fallen to ash, their bodies pierced and bloodied by the rise of _logic_ and _reason_ ; strange, tasteless beasts that cowered before the snuffling jaws that slavered at the base of their doors.

And oh how the mortals caged themselves within their embrace. Toiling like ants, ceaseless and never-ending. Twisted spires jutting into the air in crude metallic thrusts, as if to pierce the womb of the sky itself, parting the maidenhead of the clouds to rain down harsh, unnatural light like the weakened seed of a sickly child. Vain, spoiled cries of defiance against the night, their afterbirth swallowed by the darkness that lurked, waiting on the periphery even as they proclaimed their own glory in brittle, deluded cries that rang hollow and dull. Insipid echoes of the forgotten roar of Great Ones.

And still they feared.

Loki dragged a finger along their surface with a measured motion, feeling the prickle that waited beneath. He imagined them falling, great corroded slabs that groaned and cracked, toppled towers and broken glass. The screams that would rise, the scurried beetles fleeing for refuge on smashed and crippled legs, their carapaces jewelled things he could catch in his hands and snap between his fingers.

There was a shadow following their progress along these empty tubes, high above their heads, creeping and climbing through the metal gantries. Slippering and secretive, the pointed arrow of a bow between its teeth.

 _I see you,_ he breathed at it, stopping to stare and pierce the darkness. _I see you._

It stared back, held his gaze for a long moment before melting away as two rough sets of hands grabbed his shoulders, dragging him away with muttered curses. A warmth rose in his belly, slippery and wet at the thought of the one who held such creatures, made them dance and jerk like puppets on chains. Oh would that it be Thor, the fat-bellied spider in the centre of this web. Would that it be Thor.

Great doors creaked and groaned beneath their own weight before him, ponderous and slow, revealing the glittering cave of a dragon king.

Loki's lip curled in disgusted disappointment as they stopped and there was nothing more. This was not what he had sought. This was but a little fiefdom, paltry and small. Seize the glitter, rend the pomp from its bones and there was nothing left. An empty hall with an impotent throne.

A hand shoved hard between his shoulderblades, stumbling him forward to land on his knees and he bit his teeth at it, contenting himself with thoughts of fleshless fingers, skinned and raw, turning and dancing gently in the wind.

"Found the little fucker near the park." Stark's voice was bored. "Managed to get his collar off this time. Not that it did him any good, he was practically licking the concrete when we got to him." A gloved hand wove in his hair, wrenching his head back to show it for inspection. "Got another one on him. Had to mess him up a bit though."

He bowed his head, watching through shuttered lashes as Thor rose and stalked towards him, tongue tasting the air in idle curiosity. There was some power here, true, but a small, mean thing. Dangerous in its own right, but reckless, steeped in arrogance. Faith placed in other things, things that could be taken and bent to other purposes. The heft of a spear. The swing of a hammer.

"Loki." Thor's voice was a rumble, the sound of thunder, paltry and distant. "You wound me."

He twisted his mouth in an absently fettered moue of contrition, mind reaching out with delicately questing tendrils. They tapped at the walls and listened to the hollow sounds they made, snuffled behind the footsteps of the other men as they retreated, peered through the furniture and licked at the floor beneath his feet.

"Have I not spared your head? Fed and clothed you? Offered you the scraps from my own plate? And yet you would spit this in my face, repay my kindness with treachery...."

The words wafted by, strutting, boastful things. He paid them no mind. There was the smell of blood here under the polish and gleam, strange and familiar. His nose twitched at it, scenting gently. Blood spilled freely and often - on the floor, the throne and all about the room. Old and clotted, mixed with the reek of spent issue and other dark, noisome fluids. A thing beneath his mention or notice and yet, yet....

Loki let the laugh burble free from his chest as he identified it. Tasted the source, recognised the origin, divined the meaning. The place and standing of the Other, the one who had been born to this world. The slipped shadow, the one who wore his face and his skin and would dare think himself worthy to answer to the name of _Loki_. The crippled, trembling _thing_ that had haunted this place with too-wide eyes and had been plucked as Loki himself had been, plucked from its breast and gifted to _his_ Thor in his stead.

He laughed and laughed until the tears poured from his eyes. A fine gift indeed.

And how would Thor like his new brother? The soft-lipped creature who would seek only to pleasure, who would bend gladly to his will and mewl for his touch? Would he stare in surprise, as this Thor did, his broad, stupid face spread wide with confusion, confronted with things he could not understand? Would he raise his hands in mystified anger, as this Thor did, would he roar as this one, a raging, bellowed sound of idiot fury, grip that Loki by the throat and hurl him to the wall, clenching and crushing the soft column of the quivering throat?

_"....and you will HEED MY WORDS!"_

He curled his lungs around crushed breaths, felt the heat of the snarled words on his cheeks and laughed harder. He longed to cradle the raging face between his palms, to trace his thumbs beneath the eyes and press gently down until they swelled and burst.

Belov'd Thor. Hated Thor. The force that pulled and repelled. The laughing boy who had climbed the shimmering trees of Idunn's forbidden orchards under the pale moonlight to drop golden apples into Loki's eagerly outstretched hands. Had poked with him in bushes with sticks, crept into his chambers in the still of the night to huddle under shared covers and stare at the stars, marvelled at his skills where others mocked and laughed at the pranks turned in retribution. Had grown along with him, beside him, and finally past him, beyond all need for him, Mjölnir in his hand and the hearts of Asgard and their father bound around his foolish, reckless head, blinding him to all else. Bound with wreaths of glory so thick and choking that they had torn at Loki's hands when he had pulled at them, slashed his palms and his cheeks until he had wept red, red blood, had pushed him away and cast him out, a disgraced prince, a poor, mad thing to be _pitied_ and _mourned_ and _saved_ , as if he were **broken** , as if he were _weak_.

He spat the words from his mind and tasted hate.

No, _his_ Thor would not strike. He would not swing his hammer, true and needed, but take faltering steps, so slow and so careful. Would reach out with strong arms to embrace and to heal. He could see it now, so clearly with the eyes of his mind and he loathed them, loathed them both with a screeching passion that seethed and boiled in the empty places within him. The reviled and so-loved form of his world, untouchable and golden, an unassailable ideal that snapped his nails to the bed as he clawed at it. The half-shadowed and imperfectly formed _níðingr_ of this place, the one that would fall willingly to the feet of others and allow himself to be used, a flaccid creature that Loki would stomp beneath his boots without a second thought. And oh, to look at them, to look at them together _hurt_ , like a starved and gnawing creature in his gut. Would that he could tear these visions from his brain and swallow them whole to shit them out to earth and dust than bear the sight. See how the blue eyes of his brother softened! How the large hands were gentle! And how the abhorrent little _hōra_ grasped the hem of a red cloak with trembling fingers, staring upwards with Loki's face, **_his face_** to follow adoringly, a craven, half-starved _welp_ walking in a place that was not his.

His teeth bared around a snarl. Let them each have the other, yes, let them cling and cry and heal. Push great handfuls of clay into each others gaping wounds to make golems of themselves, stroke it smooth and call it good. Let them have it, let them have it and when he returned he would crush them _both_.

Loki gripped the hands at his throat with pleading fingers. Bent his head to lap his silver tongue at the thrum of the pulse beneath. Looked upwards with a wide and frightened gaze from beneath long lashes and watched as the baffled anger in the blue eyes before him slid into something else, something warm and wet and _hungry_ with unspeakable desires.

Yes, let Thor have his toy. Broken and battered and useless as he desired. And Loki would have his own.

He let the broad hands release his throat to roam over his body, clumsy and pawing. Let them grasp at his thighs, thick fingers kneading at his buttocks. Smiled a shy smile with split and bloodied lips as they pushed back the collar of his tunic, horned and callused thumbs running along the curve of his collarbone. He melted himself to the other man's grip, knees bending willingly with the motion, feeling the heat of Thor's hardness against his thigh. Made a small, sickly sound, half whimpered, half breathed as too-large teeth grazed at his neck, pulling away with a hiss as they came too close to revealing the broken truth of the collar.

Thor held him at arms length for a moment, a strange look on his features. "You would deny me?" The astonishment melted into something darker, a wolfish grin painting his lips. "It is good."

Turning, he slammed Loki against the base of the throne with the lost violence of old and the Trickster bared his teeth at the impact, breath shuddering into a low growl. Strong hands gripped the collar of his tunic, tore it away and he arched into the motion, a fastidious hiss of pleasure as sharp teeth seized his nipples, too hard and so _perfect_ , so very perfect.

He spread his legs as the hands tore at his breeches, rolling his head back and off the edge of the dais, throat curved and taut with the flex of muscle and thrumming with delight. Blunted nails raked at the skin of his thighs, fingers digging deep into the muscles to wrench them wider still, the creak of his pelvis a sweet, aching sound like the snapping of a succulent wishbone from rich-flavoured flesh.

His fingers twitched at the first thrust, brutal and vicious, without care or preparation. The dry rasp of Thor's length was inside him, thick and throbbing, drawing out his blood and his pain in a rich, fresh wave and he welcomed them, brought them forth gladly to drown deep the ghosts of the hated _thing_ that had dwelled in this place. Let them sing in his teeth, high pitched and slender, chanting in sweet, tainted notes. He drew his tongue along them, tasting the scent of some hidden sweetness long turned sour, raked the surface of it across sharp eye-teeth and purred, a bubbling noise at the back of his throat. Not pity here, no forgiveness. No gentle hands and cloying tongue, no, he was not a weak thing to be cosseted and kept.

He spread his fingers across straining ribs, dug his thumbs into the arch where they met over the hollow of the gut, aching to split the skin open like a ripened peach, to pull the heaving lungs out from underneath and drape them like wet, leathered wings across his flanks. Strong hands caught his wrists before he could act on the impulse, slamming his arms down and away, the crack of bone against marble and Loki dug his shoulders into the floor at the feel and sound of it, spread cruciform under the drenched violence and heat. He gazed openly and unafraid at the brutish features hanging above him, sun-bronzed and fearsome, a wild, untamed beast that did not paw at his boots with a sickeningly weak and loving hand, nor speak in a crooning, ill-suited voice of such things as _salvation_ or _understanding_ , but snarled and roared as it had always been meant, raking bloodied claws across his face.

And he would have it, have all of it. Drink in the force and the carnage and return it tenfold with rage and hate. Rut and claw and claim and _own_ , until the sun bled in the sky and the great Ash itself trembled to its roots.

He clamped his knees against his brother's waist, trapping him like the sweetest of insects in flowing honey as hands wound in his hair, tearing out huge bloodied hanks. They clenched about his face as if to crush it, a thumb plundering his mouth and he nipped at with playful teeth, bit down to feel the spurt of blood, the rich salt filling his mouth. It smeared across his chin as Thor pushed his face to the floor with a roar of response, fingers digging into his ear and jaw, the hollow of his eye, splitting and blackening already-bruised skin as the other man drove deeper and deeper inside him.

The great green beast slaved to the throne roared behind them, chains rattling like bones and Loki snapped his teeth in delight, matching each thrust with violent motions of his own. The marble beneath them cracked and dented, sharp slivers piercing his skin. Broad hands laid on his stomach, pushing and kneading with bruising force, weaving blood in exotic sworls and broken lines across the pulse of flesh that quivered and jumped with the force of their coupling and he wrapped his own around them, pushed them in deeper, breath coiling and snarling in his throat.

"I will put a child inside you, _brother_. " Thor's voice was low, wet with dark promise between the panted breaths. "I will take my seed and spill it within you, deep in your belly. Feel you swell with it, taut and round."

Yes. _Yes._ He hissed at the thought, hard and leaking, head thrashing in exquisite pleasure. The rotted fruit of this twisted portrait would walk as Giants. Strong children, dark children, proud monsters all. Filled with bile and wrath, nursed on poison and weaned to the blank, staring eyes of the moon. Bright of fang and sharp of claw. Devoid of all things soft and the weakness of reason, twisted and quick and there would be none who could touch them or take them from him, _none_. He would bear them forth from between his legs in a never-ending stream, one after the other and the Children of Loki would stalk and writhe across all nine realms with rolling eyes, shrieking their defiance at the living sky.

He hooked his ankles and dug his heels into the small of Thor's back, opening wider and taking him deeper, rising up to close about the his brother as they etched bloody wounds upon each other, as if to pull the broad and battle-hardened body within him entirely. Consume and subsume him, feel the mighty fists pound against his organs from the inside and the blonde hair twine about his entrails. He drove his nails deep into the back of Thor's vest, past woven threads and stinking hides through to the skin beneath, plucking thick gobbets of meat from the warm shoulders of the smooth-muscled back, the padding of fat above kidneys and spine, the sleek, tense buttocks, the thighs, slamming himself harder and harder onto the broken bowl of the taller man's pelvis in a punishing beat.

The wave rose inside him, swelling and ripe and his hips bucked sharply, once, twice, tight and spasming as Thor threw his head back and howled, a glorious sound of loss and pain and rendered flesh, the release a warm, wet wash inside him.

The golden head fell to his breast, a crushing weight of hair and beard sticking wetly to the sweat on his ribs. Snarled noises without words as he panted and snatched for breath. Loki hummed at the sound of them past his own staggered gasps, the pads of his fingers tracing gently across a flushed cheek.

"Do not think me so easily placated, brother." Elbows dug into his hips, heavy and weighted as Thor raised his head. "I am not _father._ "

Loki's answering smile was a frozen, splintered thing, teeth glinting in the dim light as he framed a single blue eye with sharp-pointed nails.

"Of course you're not. _Brother_."

The word was a purr as he pressed his hand down.


	6. Chapter 6

Steve jerked up from the couch at the sound of a cupboard slamming open, fighting briefly with an errant cushion. He hadn't meant to fall asleep, really. 

Pushing himself into a sitting position, he grimaced at the bright little clock on the DVD player. He always hated this time of the night. When it wasn't quite night-time and not quite morning and all sorts of strange thoughts and memories crept into your head. 

Following the sounds into the kitchen, he scruffed a sleepy hand through the back of his hair as he leaned against the door jamb. Thor was digging in the not-insubstantial pantry, packages flying everywhere. He seemed to have made himself two piles of goods: Steve mentally labelled them as "Things possibly-to-eat" and "Things we need to replace", although some of the canned goods would probably be salvageable. "Hey."

A packet of chips flew into the air as Thor turned, startled, then relaxed. "I apologise if I woke you," he said sheepishly. 

Steve waved the words off with a shrug. His sleep hadn't been too good anyway. He'd never admit it, but sleeping tended to unnerve him slightly on some deep, subconscious level nowadays. He'd done it enough for twelve lifetimes. "Everything all right?"

"My brother requires food." Thor pulled out an onion and stared at it thoughtfully before adding it to the possibly-to-eat collection. "His bones are too thin. I will make him some soup." 

"O....kay..." Steve stared at the pile of ingredients on the floor and swallowed in a slight panic. Thor in the kitchen tended to be a disaster at the best of times. Thor in the kitchen at three in the morning would probably be even worse. And JARVIS always got horrible sarcastic at late night cooking fires. 

He opened his mouth to suggest maybe trying to call a chef or someone - Tony seemed to have endless hordes of staff he could call on for anything at any time, up to and including the delivery of a fully assembled tank at 4am - and then shut it. There was a line to the broad shoulders, a sort of determined desperation he thought he recognised. This wasn't about food, not really. This was...something else. The same feeling he'd had when war had broken out, and he'd left the recruitment stations time and again with 4F papers in his hand, too small, too weak, too _useless_ , staring at the headlines until they made his head ache and knowing more and more people were being killed while he stood there, frustrated and helpless and unable to act. That terrible, driving urge to do.... _something._. Anything.

He'd had the luck to meet Erskine, in the end. And had been able to help the war effort, get at least some satisfaction knowing that there was at least one less bully out there. Fight the good fight. Thor...Thor couldn't do any of those things. The people who had hurt his brother (except he wasn't his brother, not really, but Tony had warned him not to say that because it didn't seem make a lick of difference to Thor and trying to puzzle it out made his head hurt anyway) were distant and untouchable – and probably dead by now, knowing their Loki - but that didn't mean a damned thing, didn't stop the frustration or the worry that made your muscles tense up and your fingers ache. 

So Thor had decided to make soup.

He could kind of understand that.

"Here," he stepped gingerly over the possibly-good pile and eeled an arm into the pantry past the other man's bulk. "I think there's some canned stuff in here. It should be easier to make." His hand closed around something round and he passed it back without looking. 

Thor rolled the can in his hand, frowning at the label. "What are these 'Fish Assholes' and why do they produce cream?"

"What?" Steve squeaked at the can and then threw it in the bad pile. He didn't want to know. Really. Just didn't. Reaching back into the pantry, he grabbed another can and checked it carefully before handing it over. "Here. Chicken soup."

Thor immediately peeled the top off and licked it. "It is good," he proclaimed. "Loki will enjoy it. But cold." He dug a finger into the can, inspecting. "And there are strange lumps."

"Well, we can mash those out with a fork," Steve dug in a nearby drawer. "And as for the temperature...."

They both stared hauntedly at the microwave for a long moment. 

"....I'll get the stove."

* * *

Steve stirred the small saucepan warily and hoped he was doing it right. He never seemed to be able to master the knack of which microwave foods really _were_ microwave-only, and which ones were just fine with being cooked by more conventional means. He also wasn't exactly a world class cook, but the broth under his spoon smelled all right, and there were no burned, half frozen or exploding chunks, so he considered it a minor victory in his favour. 

Thor was investigating pudding cups. A brightly coloured row of them stood along the counter with their flaps neatly pulled back and a tiny morsel missing from each. Clint was probably going to be pretty mad about that, he reflected ruefully. But at least he'd convinced the other man to use a spoon this time. He'd dig up some plastic wrap later, and put them back in the refrigerator before they spoiled.

At the moment, the thunder god looked like he was torn between a garish green concoction and an horrendously violent pink. Both looked equally vile to Steve, but he'd seen Thor eat worse things, so maybe Loki would too. And the fact that he wasn't really fazed by 3am ruminations on the culinary preference of a pregnant man from another universe probably should have worried him more than it did. 

He quietly shuffled that thought in the same place he put a lot of things since he'd woken up. "How's he doing?"

"Better. Both Banner and Stark's mechanical-man tell me his vitals continue to grow in strength." Having decided on the violent pink, Thor placed it on a nearby tray they'd dug from a cupboard. "But his strength is not as it should be, and he sleeps more often than not."

"I thought his magic was supposed to ....fix all that." Now he said it out loud, he cringed a little at the naiveté of the idea. As if years of abuse and pain could be waved away with the flick of a finger. "I mean, we saw the...." he made a see-sawing motion with his hand, at a loss to describe the swell of.... _something_ that had seem to rise, then fall when the device had been released. It had certainly looked impressive enough, even on the monitors. Natasha had jerked back so fast she'd nearly headbutted him in the face. 

"It does not work that way." At his questioning look Thor tried to explain. " _Seiðr_ \- part of what you call magic – is a thing given to women and few men. It is..." his brows twisted as he tried to describe words and concepts that had no parallel in English. "The cords that bind," he settled on finally.

Steve thought on what he knew from various pulp novels and mythologies and some decidedly odd new age magazines. "Elemental magic?" he offered.

The other man's face cleared slightly. "Yes. The forces from the outside and within. Wind and fire and rain and earth. Illusion and reality and the things that bind them as to what they are. _Ond_." He let out a frustrated chuff. "Your world has no real words that fit." He waved his hand in gesture that made Steve think of Tony's occasional, strangely poetic ramblings on the beauty of physics and atomic configurations. "My brother was most skilled at working such threads, even among the nine realms. Always hearing the sounds they would make. He did not so much weave _Seiðr_ as wear it, like wings." He face was distant, lost in some old, bittersweet memory. "Sometimes he seemed to fly so high even father could not touch him."

"And the collar...." He tried to hunt for words that didn't sound too inflammatory. "Stops all that?" The thought left a sick feeling in the back of his throat.

"Yes. And more. It....breaks the hands that weave the threads. Blinds the eyes that sees them. Deafens the ears." Thor's hand clenched in an unconscious fist. "To one such as Loki it would be...unexpected winter upon the summer. A thing that steals all warmth and leaves the soil barren to die."

Steve gripped the spoon between his fingers and thought of crippled birds huddled in an endless winter. Not the cozy, fun winters of now, where there was always a good fire to come back to and plenty of snowball fights while bundled in warm sweaters, or the joy of christmas and carols and watching the snow fall from a warm place inside, but the winter of the Artic. Where everything was cold and dead, all frozen seas and a lonely windswept tundra that seemed to stretch on forever. Devoid of life and washed of all colour, like a photograph left out in the rain. He knew that cold. A lot more than he liked. The thought of _living_ like that, day after day in that colourless void, dribbling into years, into centuries.... 

His mind twisted away from the thought in self-defense.

They both watched the pot for a long moment in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. Finally Steve stirred, swallowing thoughtfully as he shut off the gas. "You know...." he kept his gaze fixed on the bowl as he filled it, hoping his words didn't sound too trite. "Spring usually follows winter," he offered quietly.

The line between Thor's brows eased into something a little less broken. "Yes. And it is spring now for Loki. But if the winter is harsh and too-long, then spring is small and slow to come." He sighed, and the line crept back. "I fear my brother has seen too many long winters."

Steve reached out and squeezed his shoulder gently. "We'll help him get better, Thor," he said quietly. "I promise."

"He is not my brother." The words were soft, wrenched like some dark confession. "I know this. I know my brother is in....that place. And I fear for him, but perhaps not as much as I should. He is strong. He will fight. But _this_ Loki, he cannot. And my heart breaks for it. Although he is not my brother, I am still his. " He rubbed a weary hand over his face. "My thoughts make no sense, even to myself." He sagged suddenly, and Steve was suddenly struck by how.... _defeated_ he looked. 

"He is afraid," Thor said quietly. "And....broken. He struggles to speak, but the words will not come. Great wrongs have been done to him, in that place, where my true brother is and I fear.....I fear they were done by my hand."

"Thor, _no ._. That wasn't you. Whoever did that to him, it's not you." Steve reached out again, but Thor avoided his hand with a careful gesture.

"My mind knows these things not to be true." There was a terrible sadness to his tone as he carefully placed the bowl on the tray. "But....but I cannot help but think....if he is Loki and I am Thor....then the one who did this is Thor as he is Loki."

Steve gripped the edges of the counter between his hands, a sick feeling in the back of his throat at the terrible logic Because if Thor was Thor and that was Loki, then that meant there was probably a Tony and Natasha and a Clint and everyone else. And that somewhere...somewhere there was another Steve Rogers as well. A Steve Rogers, with his face and his body and his skills. Who hurt people, used his fists and his strength - not out of the necessity of battle, or even out of a brief flash of senseless anger...but who would _brutalise_ someone crippled and weaker than himself simply because he could. 

Because he liked it.

The thought made his guts churn. "Thor – "

"Sir." JARVIS' smooth tones broke over the conversation. "I believe our guest is waking up."

By the time he had turned, Thor had already gone, leaving a splash of soup on the floor behind him. 

Steve stared at it for a long moment and felt winter grip his bones.

* * *

Loki stirred and opened his eyes to... warmth. He lazed in it a long moment, letting it sink into his aching bones. 

The first few times he had woken, he had been convinced it had all been dreams. That he was mad, that his mind had finally slipped free of the pain and dim memories and his body entirely. Flying endlessly in strange, quasi-dreams that were all at once marvellous and new and yet somehow familiar, where he drifted between the realm that was then and the realm that was now. Frozen temples and pinwheeling galaxies, the howl of a wolf and a strange, coiled serpent that flicked a forked tongue in a gentle caress and called him _mother_. A madness so sweet he had gone to it gladly, without fear or resistance. 

And each time, Thor had been there. Not the Thor of his memories, but a stranger with his face, kind and gentle, holding his hand and his drifting feet in place. A Thor who looked on him with love and caring in his eyes, who sang songs and pushed a tender hand through his hair, as though he were cared for. As if he were precious. As if…as if he had mattered. Sometimes the one his brother called _Banner_ had been there too, hands gentle on his wrist and stomach, pressing lightly against his skin. Asking him things he had no words for, the sounds stuck and dried in his throat. He didn't understand the questions or the looks on their faces whenever they saw him, so worried and kind, treating him like he was the most fragile of things. He couldn't seem to make them understand that he was _warm_ and his child was alive and as long as he had these things then everything was perfect. 

But now he was alone. There were no gentle smiles to greet him, no hand tucked about his own to ground him and for a moment Loki felt his heart seize and stutter in his chest.

It couldn't have been a dream.

Uncertainty slithered in the back of his mind and he pushed himself a little higher on the bed, shoulders shaking with the effort, one hand automatically going to the swell of his stomach. Still small, still struggling, but growing stronger, more aware. The covers over him were warm and soft, and he fingered them gently, turning his hand over to stare at the palm, as if all the secrets of confusion were cupped within it.

Nothing made sense and everything made sense.

_There was blood on the floor, great weeping streams of it, slicking his legs and his hands as he pressed them against the pain. Thor was angry, more angry than he had ever seen him and he –_

His fingers trembled as he touched them to the collar about his throat and felt only flesh, dim embers running beneath, nonsensical and strange. Was this his magic? The effortless thing he had taken and danced with, laughing while the realms sang around him? 

He couldn't remember.

Turing gingerly on his side, he ran questing fingers along the soft surface of the pillow - _pillows, he had pillows_ \- beneath his face, before tucking the corner of it carefully beneath his chin. He liked the feel of it, and explored every weave of the material with a guilty, almost furtive air because good things were not supposed to be his, not things he could touch and have. 

His hand stilled, then smoothed across the surface with a surer motion. Except…except now they were. 

His head ached. 

It hurt to think, to sort through all the tumbled, twisted paths of cogitation spiralling in his mind, but Loki was used to pain, familiar with its sharp tongue and blunt teeth. He patiently sifted his thoughts, turning them over one by one, gripping them clumsily and fitting them together only to take them apart again and again as he tried to make some sort of sense of them, reduce them to simple things.

He was safe. 

It had worked.

This wasn't a dream.

He drew in a breath, deliberate and measured, closed his eyes and _reached_ , so slowly, so carefully, trembling with the effort. His focus was clumsy, slipping through his grasp like fine mist and all he could hear were dim, disconnected things, whispered voices on the edge of his senses. Sleeping, quiescent, distant and murmured. Tired echoes in an empty hall, so muted and restrained.

But there. Undeniably there.

Loki exhaled, slow and peaceful, ghosting a gentle hand over his belly.

And began to cry.


	7. Chapter 7

Loki crouched on the floor of the ersatz throne room, amongst the blood and sweat, careless of the fluids that seeped into the edges of his cloak as he stared into the milky orb cupped between his palms. The ghosts still haunted this place, but they were dim, silent things, reduced to their proper place as nothing more than broken wisps, torn and shredded by the wind. Feeble remains to be disposed of at his leisure. He dismissed them as the nothings they were, the rage faded and tempered to stillness and snow as he watched and waited with sharp, careful eyes.

For there was much more deserving here. Something more than the shallow forms parading about in familiar skins. He could smell it, the barest taste of smoke against his skin. Below the blood and the pain, above the glitter and the pomp. The clockwork of this realm ticked around him in irregular rhythms, catching on broken cogs and missing teeth, something less than it should be. And yet, at the heart of it, beneath the noise there pulsed.....something else. The thing he had sensed binding the fists and boots of Stark and Rogers. The shadowed creature that lurked behind the smoke and mirrors and hollow, glittering façade of Thor's shallow empire. Slippery and wraithlike it shadowed his movements, reflected in the puddles and the blank, staring eyes, crept on little cats feet and -

There. His eyes snapped to it. In a crack, amongst the stamped and scurrying ants. A speck of black among the white. He prised it free with his tongue. A single grain of.... _something_ , so well wrapped he could not pierce it. Not force, not inertia, neither arms nor seiðr, something more, something less. Something that ran on lines so measured they could not be broken, something beyond both chaos and substance, yet flickered twin beats at their hearts. The crux upon which they revolved.

He tasted the barest cusp of it and felt his skin quiver in sinuous delight. This was no shiny, pallid bauble of mendacity, no. Something fascinating and new. He tugged at the edges of it, nails catching on the grooves. He could sense the shape, but not the whole of this hidden dark star, the thing that shone where others would not. A smile broke his lips and he stroked the air around it in naked greed.

A mind like steel; that much he had already divined. Forged and wielded with such delicate precision. An intellect honed and sharp, refined to a weapon, one that could make men of science and men of force recede and rest idle, content with the role of mere thanes where they should have reigned as gods. He itched to test it, to press it against his will. But that was not the whole to be felt of it here, no. Not a mind alone. Something more. So much more. A mind of steel in some great, dim device that roared and hummed in the dark, fed on waves of unimaginable power. Something that could break the spin of the stars and the fires of the suns, something that wrapped and bent around the very branches of the great Ash itself and all the realms nestled in her grasp. And it called to him, even dim and echoed as it was. It called and cried and _sang_ , arms outstretched and oh, how he _wanted_ it.

He inhaled a slow breath. Held it. Drew away. Wrapped it well, buried it deep and cradled it close with shaking hands. He would have it, yes. In time. He would hold it in his mouth, close his lips and teeth over it and let it burn, molten to his belly. Tear asunder this world and all others, wrench aside the veils between and walk the tides of existence itself. But such a treasure would have its dragons. Fiercely guarding creatures, wrought magnificent in blood and gold. And to face them, he would need a force of his own.

The beast by the throne thrashed in its chains over the body of its former master. A smile wicked Loki's lips as he moved towards it, the eyeball falling disregarded from gore-streaked fingers. Yes.

He stared upwards as it roared and jerked, drank in its passion, the resentment and madness that spiralled and sprayed from every green pore. He watched the eyes, the sloughed wells of the soul that frothed and fumed, probing delicately at their depths for signs of thought. Force he could always use. But it was preferable if there were more.

_There._ he caught it between his fingers. A flash of reasoning. A wriggling, silvery fish of a thing. It squirmed and writhed against his nails, but he held it, held fast and brought it to the surface until the roars dulled and the beast sank to its haunches, confused, resting its weight on the knuckles of its deformed hands.

Oh _yes_.

He ran a gentle hand over the brawny shoulders, feeling them jump and twist with the power of the fury trapped within. Anger and _rage_ seethed at the core, a screeching defiance at those who would deny its nature, keep it trapped and contained, think it _tamed_ and subjugated. Something broken, something strange, something they could not fully conceive of or control. He knew that rage, knew it well, had drunk deep of its bitter dismissal and malicious incomprehension.

The knowledge was bitter on his tongue, a woven poison in the songs he sang, voice liquid with promise as he crooned to the beast of sweet things, terrible things, wicked and secret lullabies that flittered and shone in the dark. Oaths and vows of vengeance and understanding and wrath, soft, silvered words dripping from his tongue and twined into the tendrils of a glimmering web, so delicate that it fell across the creature unfelt and unseen.

He watched it sink into the green flesh, take hold and strengthen.

Loki ran his fingers over the chains and whispered softly. Gold streamed and fluxed beneath his touch, melting to liquid, a vicious rain that hissed and spat against the stone of the floor in a widening pool until the creature was free, its bonds no more than a frittered, useless thing at their feet.

The cuffs he left; a reminder and a promise.

He hesitated at the collar around the great neck for a long moment, fingering its twin at his own throat, then touched it with a single finger before withdrawing. The polished surface dulled and cracked, and the beast reached up and wrenched it free for itself, crushing the thin metal beneath a vicious grip. With a bellow of rage it flung it away, rising up high with shoulders spread and neck outstretched to scream defiance at the sky. Then it turned, eyes dark clouded and he held them, held them gently in his own, hands open and unafraid, a savage sort of joy bubbling within as the creature fell eagerly to its knees before him.

Loki smiled.

He gathered the chains in his hands, twisted, useless things and made them anew. A laugh twitched his cheek, small and smirked as the insensate form at his feet groaned and stirred. Oh yes, he could find a far more pleasing use for these.

The deed done with a single thought, he rested himself on the throne. The beast stirred again, leaning a heavy head against his thigh and he dug his fingers lovingly into the thick hair of its head. The first of his army in this new realm.

A monster, true, but weren't his children all?

 

* * *

 

  
" ** _LOKI!_** " The word was a raged bellow, punctuated by the rattle of chains, the flash of hate.

Loki stirred from where he was crouched on the floor, fingers tracing twisted runes and warped sigils into the thickened blood. Thor's form was a rage, half blind and manacled, taunt sinew straining against the pull of the chains. Half his face was a shredded ruin, streaked with gore and blood. It wept great swathes down the cords of his neck and mingling with the sweat there, twisted around the straining muscles as he grunted and pulled at his bonds.

Such a beautiful sight.

"Brother." The word was a soft counterpoint to the roar, a squirming white toad of a thing he let fall from his lips with untidy care. "Are you angry with my gifts?”

Another roar, the room shaking with its force, and he raised his face lovingly to it. Fury and anger, yes, things he could twist. Familiar and known on the golden features, a weakness long exploited. Hands reached for his throat, straining at their bonds and he skirted delicately around them, then pressed into their embrace, resting his weight on Thor's broad thighs. "Oh come now, _brother_. The loss of an eye is as nothing to our kind. Did not the All-Father himself trade a precious orb for wisdom?" He traced a finger around a blinking eye. "Should I make you twice as wise?" The bellowed roar and renewed thrashing sent him laughing to the floor.

So easy to provoke, like a caged and wounded bear. But Thor had always been of the physical. Distracted with the taste of mead. The touch of flesh. The flash of anger that thrummed beneath his skin. So easy to control, bring to harm. And if another, the strange, shining star of this realm could make him dance so, then why not Loki himself?

"Loki." The words were a snarl. Seeking to cow and bend his knees. Still playing at power when there was none to be had. "You will release me - "

Lithe as a spider, he danced on hands and knees to the other man, delighting in the way blood slicked his palms. "But if I do that, then you would hurt me. And I you in turn." His hands cupped the other man's face, pressing down lightly with the promise of pain. "And I want to hurt you, _brother_. So very much."

Such dull stupidity in the remaining eye. Such baffled, uncomprehending fury. So reduced. Loki’s lips twisted at the thought. So _pathetic_. The chains strained and creaked under the slabs of muscle, the unthinking beast that moved and roared. But even freed it would still be held fast by this thing, oh this thing that slipped unseen. Bound and caged and trapped them all and yet they did not see.

"You would dare threaten the mighty Thor?" Ahh words by rote. He could sing them in his sleep. "When I am free – "

"When I am free. When I am king. And when tomorrow comes, nothing will have changed." Loki parroted the words, whispered hisses in the air. "The Mighty Thor waits on the actions of others." He smoothed a hand over a broad cheekbone, traced an outline about the red lips with a single finger. "The Mighty Thor dances, like a puppet on a chain. And yet you were born to be so much more." He sidled around to whisper from behind, silvered tongue drifting and light. "Born to be king. Astride the throne. All nine realms trembling at your feet." He raked his nails lightly down the broad back, feeling the skin jump and quiver in response. "And yet you wait. And drift. And _whine...._ " he leaned back from the maddened swing, laughter caught in his throat.

"You would call me _weak -_ "

"I would call you _tamed._ A warrior grown fat on meat and mead." He slipped his tongue with tender care into hidden insecurities, pried at the cracks and pulled gently at old scars. "One who would sing of glory long dead. A slayer of old men, maidens and children. A hollow man, in a hollow land, stuffed full of straw and glass and the scamperings of rat feet. A thing whose kingdom falls at the shadows, a fattened fool. For this is how they see you." He crept closer and closer still, until he could feel the brush of the heated body on his cheek. He breathed it deep. "There is power in this place, _brother_. That holds and binds you." His voice was a whisper, slow and dark and soft, soft as he slid a hand across a strong thigh with a deft and sure touch. "Oh how you must chafe. The ache in your bones. Foolish fetters to bind a _god_." He crooked his fingers across muscle and squeezed, once. "And they hold you with such a small thing. Such a very small thing. So brittle. So small. Would that you hold it in their stead. "

He breathed on warm skin, watched it shiver and writhe. "Fools and weaklings. That they would make of you a shallow play-king. Would you not see them weep, O Mighty Thor? Would you not see them _beg?_ " His hand slid down further, parting the thighs, palming the strength between. Watched as the eye lidded and hazed. "You were born to _take._ To **own.** "

He saw the eyelids close, over blue and empty socket. Felt the pull of air through the mighty chest and breathed along with it, gently, gently, as Thor crept into his grasp –

Then he was flung back, away, the rattle of chains.

"You speak of madness."

"I speak of _power_." A hiss, a slice, his tongue a knife as he crouched on the floor. Patience worn thin and scraped like loom-thread. Freya's cunt, had this man no brains? Trapped and castrated and worst of all, _blind_.

"Power." A laugh now, open and mocking. The broad shoulders shaking with the force of it, blonde hair dancing under the torchlight. Slipping free from his palm, arrogant and brash. Loki snarled in irritation at the dismissal, clawing at the stone beneath his hands at the baulk of this unexpected strength. "And what would you know of _power_ , Loki. The second prince. The shallow whore. Hiding in our mother's gowns until she cast you out. A starving cat that reeks of piss, mewling for kitchen scraps. I spared your head out of pity." The chains creaked again, groaning under the strain. "You would talk to me of strength. A collared bitch, less than a thrall. A slug holds more than you."

Loki sissed in air at the words, fingers lashing like a maddened cat. _A slug sees more than a blind fool!_ He dug his fingers into the stone, as slick and stubborn as the deaf mind before him, once, twice, then drew in a breath, releasing it slowly. Stupid. Stupid. He had worked his tongue in places that were not there, the hollow voids where he had expected weakness. This Thor was too stupid to see, too deaf to hear. No real soul to damn. A dull, muscled thing composed of arrogance and brawn. He circled it, fingered it, sought the cracks and hidden grooves in frustration. To be of use it would need be torn asunder, rebuilt anew. A thing that would take time.

The thought occurred that he could simply kill Thor, this brother-who-was-not that he had no care for. A single strike, without a word.

But where was the fun in that?

Loki tilted his head and sidled closer, slipping from frustration into deference in a single motion, soft and worshipful. He closed slender hands with meagre strength around a muscled arm. Dropped his eyes, hunched in his shoulders, small and weak and fingered at the chains with a tentative air.

In the distance he could hear screams and roars, his beast let out to play.

"I have found things," he whispered, voice a dim, tremored thing. "Will you not hear of them?"

He watched the single eye track over his hands, so slim and delicate against the muscled brawn. The look within it, a sundered veil closing over. Saw the great plodding cattle of Thor’s thoughts creak into ruminating life. A pretence. A ruse. To seek an advantage where there was none. To think himself clever, empowered, a blind, stupid animal crafting at artifice.

Loki bit his cheek to keep from laughing as Thor sagged in careful resignation, the motion clumsy with contrivance.

"I am listening."

Open. Vulnerable.

"No. You _hear._ " Loki traced his hand behind an ear, producing a coin that flipped and danced between his fingers before disappearing with a flash of white. Watched in delight as the single blue eye flicked from the motion to the useless collar about Loki's own neck, realisation taking hold, followed swiftly by uncertainty, open and naked in its depths. Uncertainty, yes, the look of one whose ground had shifted beneath their feet, leaving them slipping and sliding without foundation. The tiniest crack in that dense, intractable mind, the breach in the walls, so small, so small. He could use this uncertainty, use it well. But first it had to _grow._

"Hear me in this, O Mighty Thor." Reaching out, he tapped a single forefinger beneath the blinking blue eye, then let a single bud of ice spool from the tip as he leaned in close, breath warm against the other man's ear. _"I'm not your brother."_

The mildest quiver in the blue gaze. The barest uncertainty, wariness. None showed on the face, even now. He would call it steel, but he knew it to be idiocy. Blind, blind, blind and dumb, even in the face of such evidence. Uncomprehending.

"Loki, you are ill." And ahh, such false conciliation and care, striven for and failed in a voice ill used to the tender curls of obfuscation. Predictable and unworthy, motivations of transparency. "Release me, and we will go to the healers. We will speak to mother – "

And collar and chain, tame and break him once more. Words meant for a fool, the shadowed Loki of this realm, who would quiver and grasp eagerly at any hint of kindness. Who would take the hand outstretched in false affection. Loki bared his teeth at it. To think him that shade, broken and meek.

"Would you care for me, Thor?" he asked softly. "Would you bind my wounds with tender hands? Grand me salve and soothing oils? Such little things, after all. Such little things for a little mind, a mind that begs and cries for your mercy, that kneels at your feet. The little mind that needs and wants." The ice trembled, drew back, into his finger and through his hand, along his arm, chasing snow-carved whorls through blue flesh. "I. Have. No. _Need_ "

That tiny crack he had sensed widened, split, a wide jagged breach in the slick, dull mind, and Loki poured joyfully into it, wrenching and tearing, with piercing eyes as red as fresh spilled blood. Gone finally was Thor’s arrogance. The patronising pretence and ill-fashioned guile, the motions of a fumbling dance blasted away, vanished, fled shrieking in the face of fear and awe. Loki drank it deep, drained it dry and filled it anew with his laughter as his fingers closed over the soul in his palm. He had him. At last, he had him.

" _Jötunn_ " the word was a mewl, astonished and afraid as Thor shrank back in his chains. "Who are you?"

Loki's mind sang in exultation. He didn’t know. This half-shade Thor, the broken plaything, castrated and kept. Oh, he didn’t _know._

"Play-king, little play-king." he murmured. "I am Loki." The frost receded, fading once more into pale lines and green. "And I am a _god_."

* * *

* * *

The incredibly wonderful **EatingCroutons** has done an accompanying art piece for the start of this chapter. GO. [ADMIRE ITS BRUTALITY. ](http://eatingcroutons.tumblr.com/post/21383822059/i-made-this-for-taleyas-incredible-fic-hallowed)


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